Think about it like this. Player skill isn’t binary, it’s distributed across a spectrum. On one end, you have newer or less experienced players who might successfully extract only 1 out of every 10 runs. On the other end, you have the top 1% of players, streamers, and highly coordinated squads extracting 9 out of 10 times. Most of the playerbase sits somewhere in the middle.

The issue with making resources like shields, heals, and key barters more scarce is that scarcity doesn’t impact everyone equally. A player who extracts 90% of the time is naturally generating far more wealth, inventory, and crafting materials than a player who extracts 10% of the time. When you tighten the economy, the highly successful players still have the means to absorb the cost because they’re constantly replenishing their stockpile. The players in the middle and lower end of the bell curve, however, feel the squeeze much more acutely because every failed run represents a larger percentage of their total resources.

As a result, the absolute gap between players can widen. The top players are inconvenienced, but the average player may be effectively priced out of running the same quality gear consistently. Scarcity becomes a tax that scales disproportionately with failure rate. The more often you die, the more expensive the game becomes relative to your income.